What does a professor of food law actually do?

What specifically are you researching at the new faculty in Kulmbach?

When food systems change – due to changing eating habits, new foods, or the dramatic effects of wars or climate change on food production and distribution - then the legal framework must adapt. We explore how law and regulation can participate in the transformation of our food systems. Special attention is paid to innovation in the food sector – a key term here being "novel food" - and to its regulation. How is law structured and how should it be structured so that we can continue to feed everyone in the future? Food has cultural, natural, and societal implications, so our approach is interdisciplinary. Findings from the natural sciences are just as important as research from the behavioural and data sciences to determine whether legal regulations are actually designed to better inform consumers. Other disciplines such as economics, political science, and sociology can also help us determine whether the law is achieving its intended goals and how we should interpret, understand, and design the law.

What do you see as the potential benefits of this research?

A transformation of food law is urgently needed, especially within the largest and most influential market in the world, the European Union. Law plays an essential role in such a transformation. It regulates the complex food systems in which private and public players act across both geographical and legal boundaries. Always with the aim of solving or preventing problems of food safety, food security, and related consequences. In other words, we help to allocate scarce food production resources so that we will have enough safe, nutritious, healthy, and tasty food in the future. In doing so, we look not only at the regulation of the food chain, but also at the entire food system.

Do you cooperate with companies or public institutions in the region? With which ones and in what way?

We cooperate with the Adalbert Raps Foundation, with IREKS, with the Nutrition Cluster at KErn, with the Kulmbacher Brewery, with Bergofor, with EDEKA Seidl, with the operators of the restaurant in Schloss Hohenstein, and others - in the most diverse fields. For example, we are organising the 1st Kulmbach Beer Law Day, a conference on the Green Deal and its consequences for the entire brewing industry, in July together with the Mönchshof Museums and the Nutrition Cluster. We also advise start-ups on bringing novel foods to market with the support of the Raps Foundation. And we are open to further collaborations!